Memorial day weekend

I guess summer is here in Wisconsin, we are mid 80’s the past couple days and grass is growing constantly. Sue planted garden and flowers. And I am done with school for a few months.

A lot has gone on around here in the past year. I have my B.A.T. (bad ass thunderbird) on the road again. I have shaped an  extended hood scoop for it and blacked out the trim around the side windows otherwise it still looks pretty rough paint wise. I have been driving it to town and back some and it is running better all the time.

This past semester at school I had a class of 9 seniors for my automotive class and 3 seniors in my drafting class where we learned Fusion 360, a 3D modeling program by Adobe. I bought myself a 3D printer for Christmas so we designed a couple things and the kids got to see a project from idea to production.  A total of 11 students, all seniors (one was in both classes). Here is what I made for each of them. I present to you the Columbus shop classes graduating class of 2018.

I have also added a few items to my inventory of stuff I make here. I will add articles describing them more in detail later but for now just mentioning them. I make hood moulding for the 67-69 Birds. Have improved the making of the armrest frames for these same years. I now make new convertible deck close switches for the 61-63 and the 64-66 cars. Not sure if I mentioned in the blog but also make a new motor for the flip lid on all the convertibles including the Lincoln convertibles.

Relay replacement systems are selling well and i am constantly building some of these on my bench.

Another item I made is the handle for the sunroof on the 1960 birds.

I will be attending the Vintage Thunderbird Club International Regional meet in northern Minn. in a few weeks so may see some of you there.

On the squarebirds brake booster and master conversion I decided to go with the 1″ bore master to start with and see how the brakes feel with that. Can always try a larger bore to see the difference.

OK, may God bless your holidays.

Squarebird brake booster

Some years ago I was approached to find a way to install an aftermarket brake booster with a dual reservoir master cylinder in a Squarebird. I was also asked to design a bracket system to mount an under dash booster on the cars with air conditioning. These both needed a redesigned bracket system. Up until a week ago, I had just put this off as too big of a project for the time I had.

I am now getting ready to have set of brackets water jetted and bent up to try out for fit and functionality.

I have already got a set of brackets, an aftermarket booster and also a dual master ready to mount up on a non air car and all fits well. One question I have is whether to go with a 1″ bore or a 1 1/8″ bore on the master cylinder. If any of you have input on this please let me know your opinions by an email to.    jdrax@tbirdranch.com .

More listings on Ebay store

please go check out the things I have listed. I have lots of stuff on there right now and I need to sell some of these things so I have more room here to drag more out and get it listed as well. I have so much stuff crammed on shelves upstairs and basically hidden from sight and you know…… out of sight, out of mind…… so true with this.
This summer I will be sorting through a lot of the larger stuff I have and will probably list some of those things here on my blog.